About Tilly

I was born in Townsville, North Queensland, and at the age of thirteen, the large Groth family moved to Mt Isa where I lived until my marriage to Kevin in 1964.

Kevin and I moved to Brisbane where we have lived for all of our married life. In 1969, our daughter Jacoba (Coby) was born, followed by the birth of Riley in 1971.

I was a stay-at-home mother, but when the mothering was done, I returned to the workforce as an administrator at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. Encouraged by the learning environment in which I worked, I took up study and completed my Senior Certificate while in my forties. Thirteen years later, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Queensland, majoring in English and History.

Since retiring in 2003, writing has become my passion. My first tentative step into the literary world was an unpublished children’s book, Madison’s Story, telling of the struggle for survival of an extremely premature baby. Madison is my first granddaughter. This was followed by the story of my second granddaughter, Darcy’s Story. Then I undertook to write No Middle Name which has won the IP Picks 2005 Award for creative non-fiction. No Middle Name is the story of my only son Riley, who had a mental illness for thirteen years before he suicided just before his twenty-sixth birthday.

Places I have been mentioned on the web

 I was featured on the ABC for an article on mental health, view the link to this article here